DISMEMBER Singer: 'Our Relationship With NUCLEAR BLAST Went To Shit'

May 9, 2004

In a recent interview with Belgium's Concreteweb.be, DISMEMBER frontman Matti Kärki was asked to comment on the band's relationship with Nuclear Blast Records, the label the band were signed to for a decade prior to inking a deal with Karmageddon Media (formerly Hammerheart Records) a couple of year back.

"At the beginning we had a really good relationship: we were well taken care of, had good promotion and they put us on big tours," he replied. "After the third album, death metal wasn't the big trend anymore and power metal and black metal were coming back. They started to behave quite strangely: we had to change our music and it was not selling anymore. Death metal is dead, they told us. They asked us to do something else and afterwards our relation with Nuclear Blast Records just went to shit. Since we had a contract for five albums, it was the easiest way to make the best of the two more albums instead of involving lawyers to end the contract. Leaving Nuclear Blast after that was like a new start again."

Asked how the deal with Karmageddon Media came about, Kärki said, "We got in touch with Karmageddon by sending emails to all the record labels, after leaving Nuclear Blast. Hammerheart made the best offer. It's also a bonus for us that they are not a very big label. Nuclear Blast wasn't big at the time we started working with them. We feel comfortable working with smaller labels because the contact is more personal and you get more things done. At Nuclear Blast it became a mess when they got bigger. It was like working with a government company. Our contract with Karmageddon is only for one record and then we will see how things go. Karmageddon Media is also taking a risk since we were away for a while. We also prefer it this way. If everything works out, we can do another album. If everything goes to hell we are not bound by any contract and they are neither."

Read Matti's entire interview with Concreteweb.be at this location.

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